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One Love
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Posted 5/2/2010 7:07 PM (GMT -6)

Tom:
Maybe just the simplest hope, or wish, that's simple, and reaches out in faith, and genuine realizes it fu*cked up badly and wished it hadn't...mabye that's all God needs. It was enough to get me saved.

THAT sounds like the Prodigal's Father to me.

Whole thread

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

Tom
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Posted 5/2/2010 7:08 PM (GMT -6)

KIXYTΘEMTA

One Love
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Posted 5/2/2010 7:15 PM (GMT -6)

D: I'm just thinking about "King-only-having" state "where all our defensive and offensive pieces have been taken" that you've been talking about. Part of this state, in my mind, would involve a revelation of the truths above.

T: I don't know, D. I don't understand why we need to analyze it that deeply or how we'd be able to say so. How would you go about arguing just which truths have to be apprehended for somebody to connect to God. Like I said, I didn't believe any of those things when I got saved. Did you?

Just think about it, bro. The state in hell "where all our defensive and offensive pieces have been taken" would have to involve taking our "pieces" that allow for us to be willfully or unwillfully ignorant of the truths mentioned. Wouldn't you say that's reasonable?

I mean, think about it. All God would have to do is reveal to them the facticity of their "eschatological essences" that are grounded in God. The truths are implicit in that.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

Post Edited (One Love) : 5/2/2010 7:19:54 PM (GMT-5)

Tom
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Posted 5/2/2010 7:20 PM (GMT -6)

Let's just say God is love and that he lets everybody in. Screw hell. Why shouldn't Hitler wake up in heaven in a field of flowers? I mean, who cares, right? If God doesn't, why should we? Let's just make up what we want to be true: When a person dies, Hitler and Stalin and Mother Teresa included, they wake up in heaven in a perfectly glorified state of bliss. No afterlife of hell and suffering. And the motivation for missions is just the fact that God deserves to be praise and loved NOW, and that he's worthy of our pursuing that ultimate state of bliss right now.

Tom

KIXYTΘEMTA

One Love
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Posted 5/2/2010 7:44 PM (GMT -6)

I'd rather say that the "lake of fire" (damnation experience) will be emptied of all Prodigals eventually. And God's "gates" are always to receive them when they decide to surrender to God's love. :-)

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

Tom
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Posted 5/2/2010 7:47 PM (GMT -6)

Why do you prefer that? Why must there be a hell? God is love. God dudn't need us in hell. And hell is just one grand enlightenment anyway, so why should God be bound by the conditions of hell to have to enlighten people? What's wrong with them just waking up in heaven?

T

KIXYTΘEMTA

One Love
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Posted 5/2/2010 7:51 PM (GMT -6)

I think that answer is linked to the reason that Jesus had to go to the Cross by the will of the Father in the power of the Spirit and cry out "My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me?"

If there really wasn't any real "hell" experience, then why would Jesus have to experience it?

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

Tom
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Posted 5/2/2010 7:52 PM (GMT -6)

He experienced it so we don't have to. So why SHOULD we in ANY circumstance?

T

KIXYTΘEMTA

Tom
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Posted 5/2/2010 7:54 PM (GMT -6)

If freedom is an issue, God can obviously arrange enough enlightenment in the first post-mortem second to blow all the crud out and flood us with light enough to make an instantaneous choice for God...the only rational choice possible!...and--poof--we're home.

Really. Justify hell at all for me?

Tom

KIXYTΘEMTA

One Love
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Posted 5/2/2010 7:55 PM (GMT -6)

Tom:
He experienced it so we don't have to.

Amen.

******************************

Tom:
So why SHOULD we in ANY circumstance?

Because of the current "fallen" imperfection of our self-understanding (and all of the faulty self-disposition that occurs from that).

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

One Love
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Posted 5/2/2010 7:59 PM (GMT -6)

Tom:
If freedom is an issue, God can obviously arrange enough enlightenment in the first post-mortem second to blow all the crud out and flood us with light enough to make an instantaneous choice for God...the only rational choice possible!...and--poof--we're home.

Really. Justify hell at all for me?

Perhaps...as you yourself have argued...God wants us to possess our personal histories in our glorification. And this requires a gradual "coming to ourselves" that allows for the suffering of felt experience of variations of existential "separateness" from our Source ( "hell" )...rather than an immediate "blow" of truth that would eliminate that possibility.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

Tom
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Posted 5/2/2010 8:00 PM (GMT -6)

Tom: So why SHOULD we in ANY circumstance?

D: Because of the current "fallen" imperfection of our self-understanding.

Tom: But why should those imperfections REQUIRE hell? God can fix them instantaneously upon our death by a flood of light. Once he gets the the choice for God that follows immediately upon sufficient understanding (that he grants instantaneously), he can take us to heaven and work on us there. Why go to hell at all if we can make the choice to escape it instantaneously after death.

T

KIXYTΘEMTA

Tom
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Posted 5/2/2010 8:05 PM (GMT -6)

D: Perhaps...as you yourself have argued...God wants us to possess our personal histories in our glorification. And this requires a gradual "coming to ourselves" that allows for the suffering of felt experience of variations of existential "separateness" from our Source ( "hell" )...

Tom: But if people are saved instantaneously in an enlightened post-mortem moement at which revelation and choice for God are essentially one and the same, we still have all our personal history. It just won't include hell. YOUR history won't include hell because you chose now. So why should somebody who chooses for God in the instant after death have to go to hell. They'd escape it just like you did. And their history will still include all the despair that was their life before they died.

Hell is THIS life. Hell is now.

Hey, it's easier. Let's go with that.

It's more aesthetically beautiful, right? And it's rational too, so it can't be wrong!

T

KIXYTΘEMTA

Tom
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Posted 5/2/2010 8:11 PM (GMT -6)

I don't see why you, who believes that creaturely choice for God is guaranteed once God floods the soul with light, wants to insist that God has to wait ANY length of time after death to open the flood lights. God loves people doesn't he? Why should God wait to do what wants to do and can do and what won't violate creaturely freedom in doing?

Can any of you tell me why God would be constrained to wait to flood the soul with light and get the choice for God that God wants?

Tom

KIXYTΘEMTA

One Love
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Posted 5/2/2010 8:12 PM (GMT -6)

Tom:
Hell is THIS life. Hell is now.

Well, if Kallistos Ware is right about hell being "the depths of the absence of God" and all the "anguish and alienation" that involves...

then I would agree that hell exists...now.

And through Jesus, no one has to experience that...now.

As I understand it, EO does say that both "Heaven" and "Hell" exist right now...though the full revelation of both will happen in the future.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

Post Edited (One Love) : 5/2/2010 8:15:31 PM (GMT-5)

Tom
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Posted 5/2/2010 8:14 PM (GMT -6)

I mean hell is ONLY now and NOT later after death.

T

KIXYTΘEMTA

One Love
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Posted 5/2/2010 8:17 PM (GMT -6)

Tom:
I don't see why you, who believes that creaturely choice for God is guaranteed once God floods the soul with light, wants to insist that God has to wait ANY length of time after death to open the flood lights. God loves people doesn't he? Why should God wait to do what wants to do and can do and what won't violate creaturely freedom in doing?

Can any of you tell me why God would be constrained to wait to flood the soul with light and get the choice for God that God wants?

"It is appointed for men once to die, and then the judgment"? Maybe the Father just wanted it this way.

I'm sure God the Father knows your answer. Let's ask him. Seriously.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

One Love
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Posted 5/2/2010 8:23 PM (GMT -6)

God the Holy Spirit reveals enough truths for creatures to be convicted of their sin and truly repent from the heart of their sin. Simply overwhelming the creature would divine truth wouldn't necessarily allow for this. It would be like "blissing out" a person instead of teaching and "convicting" them about themselves.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

Tom
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Posted 5/2/2010 8:24 PM (GMT -6)

That's it? Maybe the Father just wanted it this way? All this examination of my view for pages (and misrepresentation of it, yeah, hehe), and my inquiries are met with...maybe that's just what God wanted? God just wanted people in hell when they there's absolutely no reason for anyone to every go there, EVER the wicked dead? God just HAPPENED to think that was more loving than our not going to hell?

I'm still wondering too, D, if God can guarantee a choice for God by flooding the soul with light and not destroying human freedom or becoming, why didn't God not start there? Why all the world's suffering if God could have so easily avoided it?

Tom

KIXYTΘEMTA

Tom
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Posted 5/2/2010 8:28 PM (GMT -6)

D: God the Holy Spirit reveals enough truths for creatures to be convicted of their sin and truly repent from the heart of their sin. Simply overwhelming the creature would divine truth wouldn't necessarily allow for this. It would be like "blissing out" a person instead of teaching and "convicting" them about themselves.

T: It wouldn't take God any time at all to bring Hitler face to face with the truth about what he is. That's easy. BOOM...there you are Hitler. And the light of the revelation would NOT allow Hitler any escape. Hitler sees clearly. Clear vision ENTAILS instant repentance and immediate choice for God (that's what you and Asher are going for, right?), so Hitler chooses God. Maybe 1 or 2 minutes tops. No suffering necessary. God doesn't need the suffering to satisfy justice. Jesus already suffered to make this enlightenment possible, So why must Hitler suffer at all?

T

KIXYTΘEMTA

One Love
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Posted 5/2/2010 8:29 PM (GMT -6)

Interesting. Compared to an eternity with God's Infinite Love, I thought that any FINITE amount of hellish experience would be rendered negligible in that light. Like I said, it wouldn't matter if Hitler were in "hell" for 2 minutes or 2,000,000,000,000,000,000 years...not compared to God's Infinity. I thought you agreed with that.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

One Love
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Posted 5/2/2010 8:29 PM (GMT -6)

Wow. We posted the Hitler/2 mins thing at the same time!!!!

Heh... :-)

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

One Love
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Posted 5/2/2010 8:32 PM (GMT -6)

Tom:
It wouldn't take God any time at all to bring Hitler face to face with the truth about what he is. That's easy. BOOM...there you are Hitler. And the light of the revelation would NOT allow Hitler any escape. Hitler sees clearly. Hitler chooses God. Maybe 1 or 2 minutes tops. No suffering necessary. God doesn't need the suffering. Jesus suffering already so there's no JUSTICE served in Hitler's suffering. So why must he?

Maybe the time in the "lake of fire" (per the second resurrection) will only be a little "dip" in the pool of divine judgment (truth-bringing). Then he can get out of the pool, go to God's City, and receive some healing (for the nations).

Maybe?

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

One Love
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Posted 5/2/2010 8:34 PM (GMT -6)

πυρὸς αἰωνίου

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

Tom
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Total Posts : 10353

Posted 5/2/2010 8:35 PM (GMT -6)

D: Interesting. Compared to an eternity with God's Infinite Love, I thought that any FINITE amount of hellish experience would be rendered negligible in that light. Like I said, it wouldn't matter if Hitler were in "hell" for 2 minutes or 2,000,000,000,000,000,000 years...not compared to God's Infinity. I thought you agreed with that.

Tom: God either loves and has compassion on the suffering or he doesn't. He either does what he CAN do, or he doesn't. Who cares about math? It doesn't matter if 2 million years is like 2 minutes TO GOD or not. They're not the same for Hitler. If God loves Hitler, he would do what he could to avoid Hitler's suffering the despair of existence without God. Soooo, how is God loving if he COULD flood Hitler's soul with light and save him in 2 minutes (all without any violence done to Hitler's free will, so you say), but he let's Hitler roast for a while before flooding his soul with light? If that's love, all bets are off...there's NO figuring this out, no making conceptual sense of things.

T

KIXYTΘEMTA

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